When you trust your readers, you're hoping they will see what you see. Not every book is for every person.

I remember in junior high school, which is what we called it, suddenly I was looking at myself, almost through other people's eyes, and thought: how does the world see me? So that was one of the things I was really interested in, when I was writing Goodbye Stranger.

I'm an old man, and she's gone now. So don't worry, okay?

Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.' So I figured it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had.

Beautiful and fresh, Girl Saves Boy is full of the absolute truth-life is complicated. I could not put it down.

Boredom is what happens to people who have no control over their minds.

I feel like there are stages in many, many people's childhoods when you don't have one good friend. It can happen a lot in sixth and seventh grade because that's when things are changing so quickly. It's like a desperate dash for some kind of acceptable identity, and it can get ugly.